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IMP beta - presentation creation

Could you set about creating a presentation, and feed back on how easy (or otherwise) it was to configure slides, add text/image/video content, and add new slides.

Please don't worry too much at this stage about the complexities of the various options - we'll come to that soon; what we need to know first of all is whether you found it straightforward to move from a blank canvas to a finished presentation with multiple slides.

After playing around with IMP for a little while I have been able to get some presentations going within very tight limits.

The saved files will run any of the supplied images with no problems. However, introducing other images seems to be a rather hit or miss affair - of 3 jpg images I imported only one was displayed although all are saved within the "Imp Assets" directory - the saved file only seems to be accessing the first file in sequence - programing glitch (?).

1. Takes ages to load and does not let you know that it is - hence multiple double clicks....(Triple Core Phenom with 4gb RAM on XP)

2. Dunno why but I could not add the sample pictures to the slides. Nothing happened. might be me tho - will try again later.

3. Really struggling to see a market for this. Powerpoint can be learned (the basics anyway) very quickly and seems to offer so much more.I was taught the basics by a mate in about 5-10 mins, so I know it can be done.

4. Compared to most programs it just feels, limited. Its kind of like going back to microsoft works, but maybe even more basic.

Spent all yesterday afternoon in IMP trying it out,results were disappointing with missing images & having to hunt for features to use and then little reason to save any work as it "loses" much of the text or images then seems to freeze when you hit save but works fine with the save as.

My daughter gave up on IMP after an hour or two and went back to her own desktop,an hour later she sent me a powerpoint presentation that was enjoyable to watch,and was admirable for someone to produce with only 2 previous sessions of using powerpoint.

IMP in its present beta form is hopeless,beginners cant use it & experienced users are struggling too.

I did another one this afternoon and used the templates. The first time around I thought that they weren't working because they show at the bottom as you start the program, but you can't select them at that point.

I had one day out as I had my normal flu and my swine flu jabs on Saturday and yesterday I had a big enough headache without taking this on again.

Anyway here's my halfpence worth for the pot. I already covered my initial thoughts and my initial attemps in an earlier post so this leads on from there.

I had problems with locking and unlocking slides as it seemed to lock up before I had finished putting a password in and basically I was locked out of some slides.

I was surprised at the speed you were able to insert photos and video in view of the slowness in other matters, ie it seemed to take a second or two longer each day to start up. Initially it was starting up after 7-8 seconds but latterly after 10-12. Thyere was nothing on the screen to tell you that something was happening which would have been useful.

Continued to have problems running the video more than once on each slide and the play button didn't work after the first showing. I think the video was having problems rewinding.

The video rotating was nice but whether this is a sought after need I have no idea. Again probably more useful with photos.

The information screen in the top right was useful but even with glasses I was struggling to read the information.

The program still lacks colour and overall looks drab and uninviting. With a few slides built it began to look a lot better or was that the colour provided by my new Win 7 task bar?

If that ***?!! Blackberry ad jumps in once more its getting flung out the window.

There's more

I also thought there was a bit too much orange and black on the buttons and the fonts on instructions were as I said a little too small for my liking.

On several occasions I was able to create reasonably good slides with the limited tools available but in occasions I lost a few for no reason that I could fathom and I don't know where they went. It would have been nice to have a redo as well as an undo button especially when you are experimenting with ideas.

The duplicate button I found very useful especially if you wished to use a template as a theme.

I had problems trying to import photos from my PC as it seemed to select my documents folder to look for them rather than my pictures folder.

Bearing in mind what this was it was less buggy to use than I anticipated. I initially felt a bit let down as it was not what I had been expectingbut once that was out of the way I got it to work reasonably well.

There were a few times when number 1 on my wish list was for a very big button that would take me to Powerpoint.

What bits we had worked not too badly but this product needs a lot of work and has a mountain to climb before it could ever hope to go to the marketplace. I don't know enough about programing to know what is involved but this needs a new and brighter GUI.

When compared to Powerpoint, even back to 2003 which I have on my PC, this program doesn't stack up. I tried to re-create an earlier Powerpoint presentation on IMP and there just isn't enough control over the page in my opinion. Too few features and a very odd layout, with toolbars all over the place has left me frustrated with it.

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